Tag: Felice Herrig

It’s February 18th, 2016 (or something like that), which can only mean one thing: There dun been a whole lotta MMA fights booked today! And rather than give you some paint-by-numbers fight booking breakdown (looking at you, Goldsteen), I’ve decided to do pretty much that, but with gifs. So without further askew, let’s get to it!

Although he won’t be getting that rematch with Rampage Jackson in Bellator he was hoping for, Hamill has in fact signed an exclusive contract with World Series of Fighting, and is expected to make his debut as part of a 4-man tournament for the promotion’s light heavyweight belt. There’s no word on who he’ll be facing yet (our guess is another UFC veteran, which is all this tournament is made up of), but we feel confident not giving two shits about this fight regardless. Ranking:

The UFC crowned its first women’s strawweight champion last night. Carla Esparza and Rose Namajunas tore through the cast of The Ultimate Fighter season 20 and met one another in the finals.

Namajunas had a great showing in the first round, but in the second and third, Esparza’s wrestling and power became too much for Namajunas to handle. She took Namajunas down at will and controlled her easily, eventually taking her back in the third round and securing a rear naked choke.

TUF 20 got its first semi-finalist on last night’s episode, when #14-ranked Randa Markos tapped out #6 seed Felice Herrig in the first round with a brilliant modified armbar. Now carrying wins over Herrig and Tecia Torres, Markos has become the season’s Cinderella story — but keep in mind that her next fight will be a true buzzsaw against the winner of Rose Namajunas vs. Joanne Calderwood.

Also on the episode, Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez squared off in the Coaches’ Challenge, which was a non-physical competition for the first time ever, on account of Pettis’s gimpy knee. So if you feel like watching a semi-awkward UFC trivia competition hosted by Bruce Buffer, that’s after the jump.

After a 2-week hiatus, TUF 20returned last night with a much anticipated grudge rematch between #6 seed Felice Herrig and #11 Heather Clark. As luck would have it, the fight went down in very similar fashion to their first encounter, with Felice using her Muay Thai background to set up her consistently improving takedowns and generally outwork Clark all around. The UFC has made the full fight available via its Ultimate Fighter Youtube channel, so check it out above.

Also on last night’s episode, it was revealed that #9 seed Justine Kish had torn her ACL and would therefore be removed from the tournament. In her place, #3 Tecia Torres — who was upset by #14 Randa Markos back in episode 1 — was reinstated to face #8 Bec Rawlings in a later episode. The twist: Torres will now fight for Team Pettis, who are currently up five to nil over Team Melendez.

After the jump: Clark and Herrig continue their war of words on TUF Talk, which is apparently a thing that exists now.

I decided not to do a “TUF Checklist” post for TUF 20 episode 2, because there were no absurd Dana White exaggerations, none of the women said “I’m not here to make friends” or made any scary proclamations, there were no misleading teases for future episodes, and honestly, the ladies didn’t really “bring it” during the fight. (#2-ranked Joanne Calderwood looked hesitant and flat in the first round, and still managed to beat #15-seed Emily Kagan in a two-round majority decision.) The updated TUF 20 bracket is here, if you’re interested.

Luckily, the Ultimate Fighter YouTube channel has posted clips of the relevant moments from last night’s episode, as well as some unaired footage. Notably absent: The scene where some of the Team Pettis fighters tell their coaches that they’re not happy with the stop-and-go vibe of the training. According to Randa Markos, that confrontation may have compelled Duke Roufus to leave the show.

The clips continue after the jump. If you have any thoughts on the episode — other than the obvious — please share ‘em.

This quote aptly described MMA’s immediate future, or at least it seemed to until very recently. Card quality, fan interest, and–most importantly–numbers were all declining; 2014′s PPV buy ceiling of 350,000 was 2009′s floor. MMA was headed for a perplexing time when it was simultaneously bigger than ever but smaller than ever, when the fighters were more talented than ever but less popular than ever.

A series of fortunate events and new found circumstances can change all that. To make a Back to the Future reference, the horrific, Biff Tannen-owned Hill Valley that represented MMA’s future may well become the nice, stable Hill Valley in which George McFly is a successful fiction author and Marty McFly bangs his girlfriend in the back of a pickup truck. That is to say, MMA might be approaching a level of popularity, constancy and quality that many (including myself) didn’t think it was capable of reaching in the current climate.

If you’re not familiar with MMA reporter/occasional UFC employee Ariel Helwani by now, all you need to know is that he loves to instigate shit between MMA fighters more than MMAMania’s Jesse Holland loves to eye-rape Brittney Palmer. The shots, they have been fired.

Helwani has been rightfully punked for talking noise on several occasions in the past, most notably by sirs Diaz, Page and Ortiz, but has never ceased in his quest to poke bee nests from afar while simultaneously acting as if he isn’t the one holding the honey-covered stick. His shit-stirring skills were on full display at the unveiling of the TUF 20 cast last week, where he sat down (sort of) with each member of the cast to ask hard-hitting questions like:

-”Is there anyone you saw while moving into the house that you were like ‘Oh my gosh, I have to live with this person?’”

-”Is there anyone that you’re annoyed that you have to live with for the next six weeks?”

As I predicted, Tuesday’s “Sexy Women Flipping Tires” gallery — as dumb as it was — wound up generating way more pageviews than anything else we posted this week, which means that these Fitness Motivation photo galleries are here to stay. You only have yourselves to blame.

Today’s gallery was inspired by MMA fighter Felice Herrig, and focuses on sexy women swinging ropes (aka battle ropes, combat ropes). Check out the photos below, and if you have any suggestions for the next Fitness Motivation gallery, drop ‘em in the comments. At this point, “sexy women doing squats” is a strong front-runner.

Financial information has emerged in the wake of promotion president Dana White’s announcement and quite frankly, the women are coming out of the deal on top. During Wednesday’s late edition of Fox Sports Live, it was revealed that fighters will be paid at least $32,000 each prior to stepping foot inside the Octagon. Invicta’s current champ Carla Esparza is the exception, as she will nab a cool $40k herself before ever throwing a punch.

It’s safe to say all the fighters are getting raises, as some were said to be making as little as $1,000 to show and $1,000 to win. Not to mention 10 of the women will grab an $8000/$8000 split (twice) before ever stepping foot inside TUF 20 house…32 Gs to stay healthy and prepare for the show.

Since Rose, Felice, Carla, etc. won’t get a chance to officially compete in the Octagon until late 2014, that’s an awfully humane gesture by the UFC, and we have to give them props for it. As long as nobody gets injured from now until May, the strawweights have all found themselves in an enviable situation.

Those fighters (along with five more strawweights to be named later) will compete on the 20th season of The Ultimate Fighter, which begins filming in May 2014. The winner of the season will become the UFC’s inaugural strawweight champion. Coaches for the season haven’t been named yet.

As for Invicta FC, company president Shannon Knapp has put on a happy face and explained that Invicta’s strawweight division will carry on without its 11 best fighters, which seems kind of depressing. But her promotion has had a good working relationship with the UFC since the beginning, and that’s not going to change.

At this point, you probably have a lot of burning questions racing through your heads, so we’ve put together a helpful FAQ to answer some of the major ones…

Q: Does this mean that CagePotato’s sponsorship of Rose Namajunas is effectively over?A: Yeah, pretty much. But we wish Rose the best with the bigger, fancier sponsors that she’ll be snapping up next year. JUST TREAT HER RIGHT, BRO.

Q: I haven’t watched TUF since the Brock Lesnar season. (Chicken shit, chicken salad, good times.) Why can’t the UFC just start putting these women on upcoming fight cards? Like, they could re-book Gadelha vs. Esparza for the inaugural strawweight title on a UFC on FOX 1 show or something. You know what I mean?